Anssi Hyvönen belongs to a group of manufacturers-visionaries. I don’t mean to say he has some supernatural powers or that he goes “where no man has gone before,” but rather that he has a clear vision of what he should be doing and how. Amphion Loudspeakers Ltd. founded by him in 1998 in Kuopio in Finland, the owner of Amphion brand, is based on a strong foundation – the love of music. Although that sounds like a truism as all manufacturers declare something more or less similar, in his case it seems to be true.
Doug Schneider in his article for "Soundstage" titled Standout Demo - Amphion 2010 writes that Anssi believes that music not only belongs to all of us but also that listening to it is beneficial for our human nature. The way Amphion wants to bring people closer to music is through the designing speakers most of us can afford, speakers that are “pocket friendly”. “Amphion creates loudspeaker solutions which enrich people’s lives by providing a means to experience the beauty of pure natural sound in their homes - at any time - without unreasonable financial sacrifices" - says Anssi. This is confirmed in the review of the Amphion Argon 1 speaker by Marek Dyba who had an opportunity to talk with people from Amphion during his trip to the factory (and not only there - see his article Finland - the land of thousands of lakes and good sound HERE), when he writes:

Anyone who visited Finland had the opportunity to see that while we can envy the Finns their magnificent nature, their country is visibly not as rich as its Scandinavian neighbors. Hence, the Finns seem to have a very hands-on approach to all aspects of life and - most importantly - are apparently not willing to spend a fortune on audio gear. As I was told both by Anssi Hyvönen (the owner Amphion) and Mr. Mark Zakowski (the owner of probably the biggest audio salon in Helsinki), Finland high-end market is virtually non-existent. That's why the Krypton sells mainly abroad and back home Anssi sells mostly monitors (for one, they are cheaper than floorstanders, and two, most Finns do not have large listening rooms).

And this way we put in a single sentence the words “cheaper” and “Krypton” – a true coincidentia oppositorum. For, if we were to take seriously the words of the company’s owner, both those on the Amphion’s website and those quoted during interviews, the speakers that we are just about to review shouldn’t exist at all. The words “cheap” and “Krypton” stand in contrast to each other at every level, starting with the idea and finishing with the end result. And yet they do exist. Why?
The question can probably be answered in several ways, but we need to start with the most obvious, given by Anssi: there is demand for such speakers abroad. The audio market, both consumers, distributors and audio press, rates any manufacturer by its top product. It’s different than the world of film or literature where you are as good as your LAST movie or book. In audio what counts is not what’s the latest but what’s the best. And the best very often (predominantly) goes with what’s the most expensive.
But I think there’s something more to it; that Anssi and his team saw in that demand from customers from “outside” their chance to show what they can do when cost is not an issue, and to bring their concepts and ideas into a logical development, to the extreme. One can probably assume that they just wanted to prove themselves.
The company was founded in 1998 and the website says that the “Amphion project” is almost 15 years old. That would mean that the idea for these speakers emerged right back when Amphion started. This would, however, be somewhat illogical - if the Krypton was to be a response to the demands of foreign markets, it needed time to “mature”; the demand had to have some basis, that is, the company’s previous speaker designs.
So it appears that when the websites and Amphion materials refer to “15 years” it doesn’t mean the Krypton as such but rather initial basic concepts and ideas by which the speakers from Finnish company became known at home and abroad, in the recording studios and at homes of music lovers and not the same. Among those ideas number one is U/A/D.

As we read, it stands for Uniformly Directive Diffusion. By creating equal dispersion of sound waves the anomalies caused by wall, floor and ceiling reflections are to be minimized and consequently allow the listener to become more independent, at least to some extent, from room acoustics. The claim that speakers “disappear” from the room can be found in every other brochure from speaker manufacturers. Some of them understand it more in terms of aesthetics, others in terms of music perception. Among the latter one may find various “schools” – either correcting speakers’ directionality (narrow) by adding a horn in front of the driver, or opting for sound dispersion in omni-directional designs, or finally attempting to control sound dispersion in yet another way. In the case of Amphion we deal with the latter. The Krypton³ is a three-way design, with a titanium tweeter and two proprietary paper-papyrus midrange drivers (which – let's say it – means wood and cane :) on its both sides. It’s the D’Appolito configuration, which uses the results of the work of Mr. Joseph D. D’Appolito, first described in his paper “A Geometric Approach to Eliminating Lobing Error in Multiway Loudspeakers.” In this configuration two midrange or woofer drivers are placed vertically above and below the tweeter and operate in parallel implementing the 3rd order crossover. Anssi says that his design solves several problems related to dispersion in such a system, i.e. improves the directional characteristics and creates a true point source above 160 Hz. Midrange drivers’ diaphragms are manufactured in-house by Amphion and have a distinctive, yellowish hue, and are corrugated in a round pattern known from stage speakers or designs from the 50s and 60s. The diaphragm corrugation is performed on a specially-built machine. It is supposed to improve driver response at lower frequencies. Company materials say that corrugated 8 inch drivers behave like ordinary 4 inch drivers, while maintaining the advantages of a large diaphragm. Both midrange drivers work in their own chambers, side vented by holes drilled in the shape of an acute triangle. The manufacturer has long been using this solution and its benefit is confirmed, at least for me, by the fact that Franco Serblin came up with an almost identical idea in his Ktêma speakers (see HERE). That commands respect. As a result, generated sound wave has cardioid shape, known primarily from the recording studio and is used to describe the way the microphones “hear”. It’s not, as usual, a semi-circle but rather a shape resembling a cross-section of the human brain, with a semicircular forehead, two rounded rear-looking sides and the “stem”. This is supposed to:

• allow the Amphion speakers to sound good even in small rooms
• help with positioning the speaker near large windows,
• allow to sound good in rooms with poor acoustics.

The Krypton³ reduces reflections from both the side walls and back wall by up to 20 dB. As Robert E. Greene writes in the article Finish Magic :
“The Krypton 3s joins this honor roll of designs that really address the problem of the room around them, and address it with remarkable success.”
This opinion is even more valuable to me in that its author, the editor of "The Absolute Sound", uses as his reference the same speakers I do - Harbeth M40.1 monitors.

SOUND

As usual in case of such grand, stately, simply large speakers we subconsciously expect a torrent of sound and the kind of bass that sweeps us out of the room. This is understandable and relates to experiences from music concerts, where the larger the “boxes” the better - there the interrelation I'm talking about is even clearer. In home environment one also meets this type of designs but it needs to be added that they are intended only for large or very large rooms. In smaller spaces they fail miserably. At home, in case of top designs that interrelation is hidden deep by numerous layers of other characteristics, and often disappear altogether.
The Krypton³ will surprise in this respect even seasoned music lovers and audiophiles (not to mention music lovers-audiophiles…). With the majority of recordings where accent is on midrange, treble or midbass the speakers will sound like mid-sized monitors. Such Harbeth M30.1, which is more or less the size of Amphion’s midrange-treble section, sounds larger, more expansive, echoing to some extent what large floorstanders do.
What does it mean that the Kryptons sound as monitors? Well, it means extreme precision, fantastic dynamics, great selectivity and resolution. If I blind listened to them, i.e. behind the curtain, as long as I didn’t play something more energetic in the low end, say an album by Portishead, Depeche Mode, or other electronic music, I’d swear I was listening to studio monitors suspended above the mixing board. The discrepancy between what you see and what you hear is so big that it takes a lot of time to get used to, i.e. to build a new "image" of the speakers with their appearance and sound.

All the more so as it’s not a design that is easy to describe in one sentence, or even a few. It’s multi-dimensional, with each aspect of its sound combined, usually on several levels, with others, emerging from others, flowing from them and being mutually conditioned.
Take, for example, the volume of sound. That characteristic describes how large, physically expansive the sound is, or more precisely, virtual sources are. Almost always it’s something characteristic for a given design, resulting from the amount of midbass and lower midrange and harmonic saturation. There speakers with low volume and there are high-volume speakers. Interestingly, it’s not necessarily related to the amount of bass!
The Amphions are different. In their case, there is no "big (or small) volume of sound", but rather " big (or small) volume of this particular recording." The Krypton³ show differentiation a few lengths better than every (or almost every, to somehow safeguard myself) other speaker I've ever heard. They let you forget that speakers have limits and let you look into the recording deeper than other designs.
Hence, one can perfectly hear the difference between the volume of Portishead debut album and for example Imogen Heap’s Speak for Yourself. The latter, apparently more spectacular recording, with lots of spatial information, etc. turned out to be much "thinner", smaller than the former. Despite the fact that Portishead debut album reminds a mono demo tape with little frills. And yet it was that "demo" recordings that had beautiful, big sound with wonderfully focused foreground sources.
The same happened on purist acoustic recordings featuring only vocal and the guitar - Hush-A-Bye by Carol Sloane (from 1959) and Take Love Easy by Ella Fitzgerald and Joe Pass (from 1974). I must say that Sloane’s album left much more impression on me and Fitzgerald’s recordings, previously regarded by me as a rather round and warm (read - "large"), were much smaller than the much older recordings of Carol Sloane.

The ability to differentiate is actually, I think, the key to these speakers. Volume is just one of many characteristics that the Amphions show more accurately than the vast majority of other speakers, including studio monitors. The same is true about dynamics.
The latter seems pretty normal during the first period of "acclimatization". "Normal" is a good word, in every respect, and it would seem the goal to pursue. That "normal", however, is only normal in the context of other speakers, not reality. In the "real world" dynamics is incomparably greater than that of even the best home speakers. In fact, every speaker we listen to at home compresses sound. Only huge PA speakers approach real dynamics somewhat, unfortunately killing off resolution and color at the same time. And perhaps here lies incredible, growing popularity of "vintage" speakers featuring large paper cone woofers with paper/cloth suspension and horn loaded tweeters, etc. They simply have much more efficient energy transfer than conventional speakers.
The Krypton³ appear like coming from a different story. Maintaining good tonal balance, high selectivity and resolution (in that order), they show all nuances of dynamics as good as very large horn speakers. Be that changes in cymbal crashes, such as on Groove Yard by The Montgomery Brothers or the full of expression cello of Jacqueline du Pré from her album with Elgar's Cello concertos – every single thing was clear and had a deeper meaning. It wasn’t art for art's sake (i.e. "trick"), sweating over that element just so “other talk about it.” Such perfect presentation of changes of dynamics is needed by the speakers to show more natural instruments and vocals. Only so much and so many.

This results in an insanely high sound definition, definition of individual instruments. It’s not a "live", "flat", "clear", "warm" or "cold" sound, or any other in its own. It largely (because the speakers do have their own character, as I’ll show later) depends on the recording. Not fully, as there is no such thing as "transparent" speaker in the "real world", yet the Amphions do it better, I think, than all the speakers I've ever heard.
This translates into an incredibly rich sound - the "presence" of performers, the definition of each single, particular instrument and its function in the recording’s broader plan, and fantastic presentation of the true nature of various instruments and vocals.
It particularly struck me with the guitar. I’ve already mentioned two albums but I spent most time with albums by Wes Montgomery, both with his brothers as well as solo. The sound of guitar played through guitar amp, especially when recorded with a microphone, not line out to a mixing console, is completely unique. On the one hand, the distortion introduced by guitar effects (that is their role) and an overdriven guitar amp are quite repetitive. Each guitarist has his own set of effects and favorite amp and even if he plays with tone, depth, feedback, etc., it is still within a certain, defined "set". Or so it is shown "home" speakers. But if that’s true then why the hell all those guitarists are so particular about their specific guitar, amp, etc.? Why bother if it all sounds the same?
The Krypton³ show what it's all about. That electric guitars differ from each other in tone depth, its texture, also in 3D size. In expression, small changes of attack and color. In various character of distortion. Another cliché (and I thought I'm not trivial), but I have to say that with these speakers you simply hear everything better. More accurate, more selective than with the Harbeths M40.1. The latter still have some characteristics of sound and only they make me weak at my knees. But it was the Amphions that showed what the Alan Shaw’s speakers are missing.
In this state of mind I listened to Offramp by Pat Metheny Group. It’s one of my favorite albums and I didn’t reach for it by a loose association of the type "Scandinavian speaker calls for a Scandinavian label." For neither is ECM that released the album Scandinavian, but German, nor is Metheny Scandinavian; it wasn’t even recorded in Europe but in the USA. While it was mixed and engineered in Oslo by John Erik Kongshaug, a Norwegian, but it’s not something I remember every day and it wasn’t what guided my choice. The album was meant to show me how well the speakers can join material recorded in an infant stage of digital recordings into one whole. The Amphions did something more. They showed a lively, rich nature of the sound, the amazing depth and volume of instruments, exactly the same as before on the Portishead album. They also showed exceptionally well what these speakers do with bass.

And it’s the kind of bass we don’t quite expect. It is short, clean, without clear definition and hardly punctual. It only speaks when there’s something to say. It’s not stretched out or dragging along. But there is no hard attack. With the above mentioned du Pré cello it showed what one might even call a soft "underbelly", because it was velvety smooth. With electronic music on Diary of Dreams album it was strong and tight. No softness at all. Its color was just like the color in the recording (which I monitored on headphones).
But we need to keep in mind the unusual – although not wholly – design of these speakers. Bass woofers are located on one side and the speakers can be set with the woofers facing inside or outside. The choice will be dictated by the size of our listening room, speakers distance from the walls, from the listener, etc. Anssi Hyvönen writes what follows:

Dear Wojtek - hello again!

I learned you’re getting ready to audition the Krypton³. Unfortunately, we did not have time to warm them well. I am very sorry for that. Taken straight out of the box they may seem a bit "thin" in midrange.
When it comes to positioning, I would try them first with woofers facing inward. It's a safe choice in most rooms. If you prefer a broader soundstage, you can give the outside setting a try, but in this case you need to devote more time and attention to proper positioning, sufficient toe in, accurate adjustment both horizontal and vertical.
You can use the directional nature of the tweeter to adjust the angle of toe in. Feel free to experiment with speakers toe in, aiming them in front of you and directly at yours ears and choose an option you like best.
Another difference is with tilting the speakers back. Due to a really good sound propagation you need to pay attention to speakers perfect acoustic "match" - it's worth spending more time on it. A few millimeters can bring unimaginable changes.

Your sincerely,
Anssi Hyvönen

As you can see, it is worth working a bit harder on proper positioning - each change results in a significant modification of sound. For me, the best setting was with the woofers facing inside and speakers aimed almost straight at my ears, only slightly toed in. What’s important - so powerful speakers showed no excess bass in my not very large (25 m2 plus 15 m2 open space) room. The sound was very good. Nor was any problem was sitting close to them. It is clear that the efforts to control sound propagation produced excellent results.
However, it should also be clearly stated that such design, i.e. with woofers radiating outwards, not straight ahead, gives some side effects. I heard it every time when I had such designs at home. Compared to speakers with all drivers facing forward, in the listener’s direction, speakers such as the Krypton³ are less punctual, show more limited definition. Although the Amphions are special in this respect, I had no doubt that as long as the instrument was exactly the middle of soundstage (as Portishead electronic bass or bass on the Montgomery’s album), the sound was exactly the same as from the best classical designs – tight but full, with good definition and texture. If the instrument is moved in any direction, or if it’s in counterphase then the definition is worse, without the feeling of "here and now". The differences are not large enough to be a nuisance, but there are there once again confirming what I know about such designs. I also heard a slight color modification near the crossover frequency between the woofer and midrange. Anssi indicates that over time lower midrange gets better. Indeed, each next time I came back to listen it seemed to me (it's probably the best word) that there is more body, flesh that it’s more meaty.
At the same time, however, I heard that these speakers will never be as saturated as the Harbeth M40.1 - no chance for it. The Krypton³ have stronger treble, more direct and detailed, and the same can be said about lower midrange. I do know that the Harbeths tonal balance is shifted down and that bass is boosted by a few decibels. And that’s where the meaty midrange come from. That’s suits me just fine. I take it without batting an eye.
The Amphions show everything with greater precision, selectivity, i.e. they are more accurate to the "letter" of the recording. At the same time, however, they are not as faithful to its "spirit," or something "outside" of features that are usually mentioned. We are talking about absolute high-end and it has nothing to do with duels at lower price levels – here it is more a matter of taste than criticism. But I would not be fair to the reader, I would not be fair to myself if I did not say that I liked this particular aspect, i.e. midrange saturation, its his fullness and meatiness, more in the Harbeths. And that it is for me - at the moment - the most important aspect of any speaker.

There is, however, an element that is absolutely unique for the Amphion. I've heard it a few times with cheaper speakers from that manufacturer, but it never was so clear, so tangible, I never sat brooding over audio, and over the fact that this road has no end and that when we climb the - seemingly - last hill, it turns out we face another, even higher.
It's about soundstage. Reading the description of the Krypton³, the company’s philosophy, reading Anssi’s statements, we can’t but notice that there are three elements that constitute the brand, that are its distinguishing features, something that separates it from other loudspeakers manufacturers. The first is the affordable prices. We already talked about it and as we know that it doesn’t concern the reviewed speakers. The second is the quest for absolute fidelity to the source material (recording), known mainly from recording studios. And we have it here - as I said, the Krypton³ sound like small monitors. With the kind of bass the latter will never have. And the third element - space. The speakers are designed for maximum time coherence.
Controlled dispersion of sound waves makes them to a large extent from room acoustics.
But most important goal for the designers was probably a more natural sound wave propagation across the frequency range. And hence an improved D'Appolito configuration, lossy midrange driver chamber, proprietary midrange driver diaphragms and a special element before the tweeter.
It all adds up to give spectacular results but not the ones you could imagine. These are not acres of space extending on the sides of the speakers. At first it seems that the soundstage is squeezed in between the speakers and that nothing happens beyond them. If that’s so it means they need to be further away. And again. And some more. Until we collapse from exertion or (which is preferable) sit down surprised – for right in front of us a window opens on authentic, almost disturbingly natural reality. But it will always remain between the speakers. The further apart they are, the larger and freer the virtual sources.
However, regardless of our efforts with positioning the Amphions, from the very beginning they show beautiful focus and coherence. There is 3D like with small monitors and there is oomph and momentum like with big speakers. But there are also elements that elude us or blurs with most speakers. Just like the sounds behind us and on our sides. The Krypton³ not simply show them, but rather "cast" a holographic image around us. These sounds are strong and clear, not veiled. I have never heard anything like that from two speakers; even 5.1 systems (or, while we’re at it, 7.1) are not able to show it so naturally, so spectacularly.

Conclusion

The Krypton³ are Amphion's crown. Not a pearl, not a pride, but crown. Although they cost a lot of money, compared with the top speakers from other manufacturers, except perhaps Harbeth and Spendor, they are relatively inexpensive. They are beautifully made and have behind them a real man of flesh and blood with solid footing and, above all, with a vision of how things should look like. Their sound is spectacular. Extremely precise, devoid of coloration and annoying "flicker" of sound contours, with strong, saturated bass. It is a true monitor, without any further comment. Its color is more "fresh" than "mature". Lowed midrange is not as saturated as what’s above and below. Selectivity is phenomenal, resolution very good. Soundstage, when the speakers are properly positioned, will embarrass the vast majority of multi-channel systems, no matter how many channels are harnessed for this task. Real, authentic, worked out and not imagined high-end.

DESIGN

The Krypton³ from Finnish Amphion is a powerful floorstanding passive speaker. It is a three-way, four-driver vented design. Each driver covers about 3.2 octave range which is often taken as the most optimal solution. The tweeter is a 25 mm titanium dome loaded into a large "horn" or rather Waveguide Integrator of the same diameter as the two midrange drivers above and below. Lower than normal crossover frequency, according to Anssi, helped eliminate typical D'Appolito configuration problems with interference and created horizontal and vertical symmetry, with the exact acoustic center on the tweeter axis.
The midrange drivers are manufactured jointly by SEAS and Amphion. SEAS provides baskets and drive systems, and Amphion manufactures the 200 mm paper- papyrus diaphragms. They are extruded in a special machine so as to form characteristic concentric “ribs”. Anssi says that the drivers work as if they were about half the diameter, while maintaining the advantages of large speakers. These three drivers form the D'Appolito system.
The dome tweeter from Norwegian SEAS has a sealed chamber (visible through the bass-reflex vent) and is crossed over at 1600 Hz. Midrange drivers chambers have a special design developed by Amphion. Inside they form triangular-shaped chambers, tapering towards the rear. The chambers are not sealed – on the sides there are holes that form a pattern repeating the chamber shape. The chamber are dampened from the inside. With this treatment, the sound wave emitted by midrange drivers is cardioid shaped and help the speakers better integrate with the listening room. Both drivers operate in parallel in the range between 160 Hz and 1,600 Hz.
The 254 mm (10 ") woofer has aluminum made diaphragm. It sports thick rubber front suspension and a very large double magnet. The woofer is mounted on the cabinet’s side so speakers can be positioned with the woofers facing inside or outside. Interestingly, the cabinets feature woofer holes on both sides with one of them sealed with MDF. It seems that allowed to simplify cabinet manufacturing. The speakers are manufactured in a beautiful factory near Kuopio, co-owned by Amphion. From the inside the woofer magnet rests on a support specially designed for that purpose. Because of that the whole acts as one large component. The woofer is loaded into vented enclosure with one vent located between the midrange drivers chambers. The cabinet is strengthened at the bottom with quite complex rims and damped with foam rubber.

There is a single pair of speaker terminals made of pure copper coated with palladium. Internal wiring is proprietary - a silver plated, ultra-pure copper stranded wire composed of 240 single wires. A separate run of silver wire serves to improve grounding. The woofer is coupled by two parallel cables. The crossover network is assembled on a PCB and mounted to the plate with speaker terminals, which I couldn’t unscrew. The picture shows, however, polypropylene capacitors and air coils.
The cabinet is gorgeous – finished with natural veneers, with two grilles on both sides of the cabinet, covering the woofer and the sealed hole on the opposite side, of which I spoke.
This is a fantastically built speaker, beautiful, solid, with a number of its own "patents".